When we were mostly clean, we headed back downstairs to the basement to try to get some sleep. Devon and Felix took the air mattress on the floor, while Deah and I curled up on the cots. Oscar used some of the extra clothes to make a bed for himself and Tiny, right next to the bags of bacon-flavored beef jerky on one of the metal racks.

Once everyone was settled down, I ran my fingers over the touch lamp, casting the basement into darkness. One by one, the others drifted off to sleep, their breaths growing deep and even, but I lay on my cot, staring up at the cracks that zigzagged through the ceiling, replaying tonight over and over again in my mind, wondering what I could have possibly done that would have saved everyone at the restaurant and the mansion from Victor. Even though I’d known that it was coming, he’d still attacked my friends, my Family, and I had failed to save the people I cared about.

Just as I’d failed to save my mom four years ago.

My hand curled around the Sinclair cuff on my right wrist, my fingers tracing over the small sapphire star embedded in the metal. The sharp points of the star pricked my skin, but the sensation soothed me because it told me that I was still alive and that I still had a chance to save my friends.

I’d kept Devon, Felix, Deah, Oscar, and Tiny safe, and I was going to make sure they stayed that way. In the morning, I would start figuring out how to find and rescue Mo, Claudia, and the rest of the captured Sinclairs.

And Victor . . . I was going to find some way to defeat him, to finally make him pay for all the horrible things he’d done to me, my mom, and my friends.

I wouldn’t fail them again—no matter what.

My promise complete, I dropped my hand from the cuff, turned over onto my side, and finally let myself drift off to sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Ouch!”

A sharp bang, followed by that whispered word, made my eyes snap open sometime the next morning.

Had the Draconis found us after all? Were Victor and Blake here, ready to finish what they’d started at the restaurant last night? I lay still on my cot, although my hand had already wrapped around my mom’s sword, which I’d slid under my pillow. My fingers curled around the hilt and my entire body tensed as I readied myself to leap up and start swinging the weapon at anyone who came near me.

“Be quiet!” another voice hissed. “Lila’s still asleep!”

I knew those voices and I relaxed as I realized what was happening. Devon and Felix were trying to quietly get up but not having any success at it, since the basement was still pitch-black. I looked over at the clock sitting on the table in the corner. Just before noon. We’d been down here for almost twelve hours. I scrubbed my hands over my face. I felt like I could sleep for twelve more hours, but I couldn’t afford to stay in bed any longer. Not if we wanted to get to Mo, Claudia, and the others in time.

So I reached over and hit the touch lamp with my fingers, flooding the basement with light. Devon and Felix froze at the bottom of the steps, while Deah let out a low groan, rolled away from the light, and pulled her blanket up over her head. On their shelf on the metal rack, Oscar and Tiny didn’t move or stir at all, both of them still snoring in chorus, like a low drumbeat running through one of the pixie’s beloved country songs.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, my voice thick with sleep.

The guys exchanged a guilty look, but they both turned to face me.

“We were going out to the Midway to see if we can spot any Sinclair guards or get any news about my dad and the others,” Felix said.

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? Whose dumb idea was that? The Draconis, especially Blake, are sure to be looking for any Sinclairs that they didn’t kill or capture last night. They’ll have guards posted all over the Midway. The two of you wouldn’t last three minutes before getting spotted.”

“Well, we can’t just hide down here and do nothing,” Devon said. “Not when Victor has my mom and Angelo and all the others. We have to find some way to save them before it’s too late.”

“And we will,” I said. “But you guys are thinking that you can just walk through the Midway like everything’s normal. Like you still have the full force of the Sinclair Family behind you when you don’t.”

Worry filled Felix’s dark eyes, while a muscle ticked in Devon’s jaw. I hadn’t meant my words to be so harsh, but they were, because we all remembered the blood, bodies, and destruction at the Sinclair mansion. And we all knew that nothing would make Victor and Blake happier than capturing or killing us just like they had all the other Sinclairs.

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the cot. Deah sighed, threw back her blanket, and did the same. Oscar and Tiny kept right on snoring, though.

“Listen,” I said. “I want to find the others just as badly as you guys do, but we have to be careful. That’s the only way we’re all going to get through this in one piece. Victor. . . he’s been planning this for a long, long time. He’s sure to have thought about how things might go wrong and have contingency plans in place. He might not have expected us to switch out the black blades for fakes, but he’s probably already regrouped and has a plan to find us, get the weapons back, and finish what he started. And he’s got the guards to help him do it. All we have is each other and what’s in this basement, so we have to be smarter about things, sneakier, and cleverer than he is.”

Devon’s hands tightened into fists, and he started pacing back and forth across the basement. “We can’t just stay down here and do nothing,” he repeated.

“I didn’t say that.”

“My mom and the others could already be dead,” he said in a harsh voice. “Victor could have killed them last night while we were running all over town.”

Devon stared at me, the red-hot needles of his pain and anguish stabbing me in the chest, while his aching desperation and helpless rage boiled in my veins. I felt the same way, but I pushed the sensations aside and focused on him.

“You saw Victor at the restaurant last night. You saw the look on his face when he realized that Claudia had stolen all of his precious black blades right out from under him,” I said. “He won’t kill her. Not until she tells him what she did with the weapons.”

“He’ll torture her to get the information. You know he will,” Devon snapped, more anguish filling his eyes. “No doubt he’s already started.”